At the November 19, 1863, ceremony dedicating a soldiers’ cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where more than 51,000 were killed, captured, or wounded in the war’s costliest battle, Lincoln eloquently laid out the meaning of the war.

That the brief address became one of history’s most famous and praised speeches is due not only to its stirring language or the event that occasioned it. In defining the purpose of the war, Lincoln was calling on the nation to continue America’s grand experiment of government by the people.

During the ceremony, the president’s address was overshadowed by renowned speaker Edward Everett’s two-hour oration, which preceded it. Lincoln initially believed his speech was a failure, but, within days, newspaper and popular reaction assured him of its success. Even Everett observed its effectiveness in a letter to the president: “I should be glad i f I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.”

Five manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address, written in Lincoln’s hand—with minor word and phrase differences among them—are known to exist. The copies Lincoln gave to his private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, are in the Library of Congress. He later made out a copy for Everett; this manuscript is at the Illinois State Historical Library in Springfield.

Historian George Bancroft requested a copy from Lincoln; it is now at Cornell University. The Bliss Copy, reproduced here, was penned by Lincoln for inclusion in Colonel Alexander Bliss’ book Autograph Leaves of Our Country’s Authors (1864). It is considered the “standard” version and is the one most often reprinted. The original Bliss document is displayed in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House.

"Fourscore and seven years ago owe fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

{"type":"article","show_header_text":false,"header":"ARTICLES ABOUT GETTYSBURG ADDRESS","query":"(hdl=\"PROGRAMME SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT\" or des =\"Civil War (US) (1861-65)\" or des=\"CIVIL WAR (THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES)\" or des=\"CIVIL WAR (US) (1861-65)\" or org=\"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA\") and ((body=\"Gettysburg Address\") or ((geo like \"Gettysburgh\") and (per=\"Lincoln, Abraham\" or body=\"address\" or body=\"speech\")))","search_query":"(headline:\"PROGRAMME SUCCESSFULLY CARRIED OUT\" OR subject:\"Civil War \\(US\\) \\(1861-65\\)\" OR subject:\"CIVIL WAR \\(THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES\\)\" OR subject:\"CIVIL WAR \\(US\\) \\(1861-65\\)\" OR organizations:\"CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA\") AND ((body:\"Gettysburg Address\") OR ((glocations.contains:\"Gettysburgh\") AND (persons:\"Lincoln, Abraham\" OR body:\"address\" OR body:\"speech\")))","num_search_articles":"15","show_summary":true,"show_byline":true,"show_pub_date":true,"hide_thumbnails":false,"show_kicker":false,"show_title":false,"show_related_topics":true,"show_rad_links":true,"show_subtopics":true,"exclude_topics":"GETTYSBURG ADDRESS","more_on_header":"MORE ON GETTYSBURG ADDRESS AND:","alternate_index_subidx":"all.main","show_thumbnails":true}